The movie begins with anxious, ferocious Aurora Greenway (Shirley
MacLaine) clambering up over the side of her baby's crib and hurling
herself on the tot, hysterically convinced that she has only seconds to
administer the kiss of life to her darling Emma and save her from crib
death. Naturally, all she does is disturb a healthy infant's sleep.
From this scene it is obvious that Terms of Endearment is a comedy.

The story ends, some three decades later, with the same mother and
daughter (played...